A Time Gone By
by JazzStick
Summary: Ten years into the future, Dipper has followed in Stanford Pine's foot steps with the pursuit of Weird Research, maybe a little too much for Dipper's taste. Faced with the peril of those he cherishes, he's faced with a drastic choice. (It says Dipifica pairing, but there's really very little). Hurt/Tragedy


**Authors Note: I've noticed that there are generally only two things that really motivate me to write: romance, and tragedies. Mixing the two is just a plethora of fantastically heart-wrenching, tear-jerking goodness that could possibly send me into a coma if the author also happens to be a veritable, literal, linguistic master of the English language. I am -NOT- that, but hey, I can try at least. This story is intended to be my out. That is to say, an out of a world of creative urges and impulses that drive me into actual hour-long day dreams when I should be more focused on things like number theory and the modern design paradigms of object oriented programming.  
**

 **I hope you all enjoy this single release as much as I enjoyed writing it. I originally wrote all of this solidly in the past tense, but decided, perhaps, a story that is being told in a happening tense will be different enough to grab attentions. Conversely, that may scare away people who are used to reading only in the past tense. And, if I'm honest-and I try to be-this one-shot doesn't have as much of an impact as I first intended it to. It's not that its drawn out, it's more that I haven't done any proper build up for most of the allusions I use, and there's no real reader connection to the assets of the story except for what we've already established from the television series. I wish I had the time to create my preamble and turn this, what essentially is the denouement, into something that I believe it to be worthy of. It's a personal shame to me that I released this into the wild as it is. C'est la vie, I suppose.**

 **Note that Etherium is a term that would have been explained in previous chapters, but just know that its something Dipper discovers that can mutate reality when it comes into contact with "real" stuff.**

 **Reading Legend**

 _Italics -_ are for singular exaggeration of a word, or for internal dialogue (thoughts)

 **Bold** \- only used once, but it's an attempt to illustrate the bizarre shape changing Bill undergoes when he has an episode.

*action* - anything inside asterisks (*) are emotes.

* * *

In a lab filled with magical contrivances and technology that would make even the greatest of engineers' stutter in awe, a man stumbles into the darkness, having just enough strength to keep from collapsing into something hard and metallic. A few lights flicker here and there to illuminate the man's path, motion detectors, all the way down to the farthest corner of the cavern it had all been built within. The man steps into a crack of light between towering devices, revealing his disheveled white button-up shirt and black dress pants. Both are marred by mud and splotches of blood, making his tall figure seem less daunting than it may be on its own. Though the man isn't exactly a specimen of muscular physique, lithe ropes of muscle, probably from a moderate exercise regimen, moves beneath his skin. He comes to a stop in front of a computer screen, the blinking white cursor of it being the only immediate light until he awakens the sleeping giant. Into the terminal he types: "(Login: Dipper Pines - Password: ************)." He takes a moment to go over just what it is he's about to do in his head, before the whirring of a door opening brings him back to the present.

Dipper stumbles into the catalyst chamber, clutching his chest and breathing heavily as an unseen force continues to pound away at every ounce of flesh that young Dipper has to his name. Blood lightly streams out of his nostrils, a sure sign that the abuse he'd been taking was starting to wear him down to dangerous proportions. With a hefty grunt, Dipper forces himself to the other side of the cylindrical chamber, activating what he knows to be his last and reckless idea. The only idea he has left with the current time. The machine was a last-minute creation, though built on top of old equipment so he at least knew it would work. _If this doesn't work,_ Dipper thought. The sound of pneumatic actuators and interior lights activating signals to him that the door had successfully closed behind him, sealing him in with both magic and magnetic locks alike. A few fluorescent lamps installed behind tempered glass paneling vaguely illuminates his brief prison, reminding him of the countless hours spent developing this to be his future salvation.

Dipper scoffs, sliding down the wall as he savors the bittersweet irony. _Well,_ he thought, _it´ll be someone´s salvation, anyway._

"What's so funny, Pine Tree? Going crazy with little me tearing away at your soul and mind?" Came the reverberant voice of Bill Cipher. "I'm impressed with what you've done to the place, by the way. Reminds me a little **_too_** ** _MUCH_** of Stanford's barrier."

"I was just thinking," Dipper says, his voice hoarse with strain, "that you can take any form you want, and you choose to be a stupid yellow triangle."

" _What was that, Pine Tree?!"_ Bill's uproar rattles every bone in the scientist's body, sending him into a prone position to cradle his aching flesh. Dipper has a feeling of breathlessness before coughing up a smattering of blood.

Bemusedly, he thinks through a bloody grin that maybe Mabel is right: his jokes really _are_ painful.

" _You'll be lucky to ever see the outside world ever again once I get control of your body!"_ Another wave of pain shakes Dipper, and this time he could practically feel his bones crack under the invisible weight of the demon's words.

"You're—* _grunting*_ —probably right there, Bill. I'll never see the world again. But it's a sweet prize to know that you never will either." Dipper smirks smugly, though his continued pains give him return from that terrible idea of _moving._

"What are you talking about, Pines?" Bill says, curiosity piqued. Dipper notes with intense satisfaction that the omnipresent gnawing sensation eases up. Fear, or perhaps intrigue, apparently clouds the minds of both mortals and malignant spirits alike. Who knew?

"You've been too busy clawing away at my mind to notice, you're so sure of yourself for being so desperate." Dipper answers coolly. He feels the demon shift impatiently, his spirit and body feeling like overstretched elastic. _Best not push my luck_ , Dipper thought.

"What you thought was going to help you break my mind spell does a little more than that. I trapped you inside me, and now I've trapped myself inside my machine." Says a matter-of-fact Dipper Pines.

"Machine? Trapped me? You _have_ lost it Pines, you can't contain me—hey what's going on?!" Bill's voice quickly becomes frantic, having by now realized he can no longer materialize outside of Dipper.

"I told you, Triangle, you're stuck with me. You wanted my body, well now you've got it." Dipper chuckles softly at his enemy's distress, eyes half-lidding as the light of the lamps becomes more hostile to his senses. His voice is almost a whisper when he says, "Etherium* crystals are an amazing thing, aren't they?"

"Etherium? Pines, there's no way you got your hands on that stu—" Bill's words stop flowing through Dipper's mind. No doubt he's remembering how busy Dipper has been in the past ten years. Then, a shuddering guffaw rips its way through Dipper's body, and every laugh is as if Dipper were bursting apart like a water-balloon. "So, you're telling me-*laughter*-That earlier? -*laughter*-It was in that shot I made you take, right? Hahaha! Maybe I should have just killed the blonde instead of threatening, that way I could've saved your annoying sister for last." The triangle was enjoying this, but he wouldn't for long. "Oh Pine Tree, if you think a little Etherium is going to stop me for very long, you're DEAD mistaken! Hahaha!"

"There's two things wrong with that statement, Bill." Dipper continues with little emotion to his voice, despite wanting to scream with outrage in that moment. "One, it's not a _little_ Etherium. It's a dose that would kill me anyway. In fact-*grunting*-I can feel it already. And two, it doesn't need to stop you for long, it just needs to keep you here until my machine is done." Somehow, Dipper didn't seem as smug as he thought he would be while delivering that bit. It just seems too real. "When this machine is done, it'll transmogrify us both, seeing as you're trapped inside my body. _In an Etherium prison_. Right next to my _human_ soul."

"What's your point, pines? I change shape all the time." Bill says.

"Not like this, no, you don't." Dipper's gravelly voice grunts out. "We'll be turned into pure energy, and then the final stage begins. I wondered what happened to the Time Baby when you stamped him out. Turns out he's not totally gone, just-*grunting*- a little discombobulated."

"Pine Tree—" Bill had begun.

"We'll be mixed with what's left of the Time Baby's energy." Dipper coughed. "And then, the machine is programmed to ' _erase_ ' us with it. From all time, forever. Your control over space, and his control over time. Both are needed to do this. Thanks for volunteering, Bill."

Bill screams angry profanities at Dipper and each word rips through his body like lightning. It also causes something that immediately the triangle would regret. A stalagmite of Etherium bursts from Dipper's shoulder, and from it, the skin around it was already crystallizing to match it, spreading alarmingly quick down his forearm.

"Keep fighting it Bill. The more energy you use, the more it grows!" Dipper yelled out, sending specks of blood and pinkish crystal flying. The aggravation and revelation that the end was soon did little to quiet this boy-turned-man.

"And here I just thought you were being melodramatic-Pine Tree, I can fix this, I don't think you understand what you'd be doing to your friends, ya'know?" Bill chuckled nervously. "If you make a deal with—"

"I'm _NOT_ making a deal with you. Stop dreaming. When that machine goes off, it'll be like both you and I are imaginary. No, worse than that: we'll have never existed. Mabel will have been an only child, and I know what I'm doing." Dipper snaps with complete loathing.

Dipper lays there for the longest time, the demon eerily quiet inside of his body. Occasionally he notes the sensation of a crystal growth, or even the lack of sensation altogether. The nerves were probably changing already. This wasn't how the young man had wanted to see his life end, but he was at least happy with knowing Bill Cipher will never return. For sure this time. For all time in every literal since of the word.

Though he wishes he could still make it out of this, to once again see the faces of his friends, his sister, his parents, and maybe even _her,_ the decision was made for him as soon as they were threatened _._ Through tears of blood and partial gemstone, Dipper smiles, and then he whispers, "I'm sorry, Mabel. I wish I could have been there for your wedding."

Then the smile becomes a frown, "And I'm sorry to you too, Paz. When I saw you again for the first time, all I could think about was my work, and now all I can think about is how happy I was with you. Happier than I've been in a long time. And after all these years being back here, I just wish I could tell you- _*groaning*_ -I love you, Paz." Dipper's eyes glaze over with the similar sheen of a rough-hewn quartz. His eyelids move over them, giving them the rest they finally deserve at last. No more computer screens.

"At least … you'll both be safe now." Comes Dipper's voice, so soft and yet so gravelly that the listening triangle could hardly believe what was happening. But then that was quickly the least of his worries. The machine roars to life, and intense heat quickly fills the chamber around them, and the triangle does little more than listen to the sounds of doom from inside his crystalline prison.

"What kind of human are you, that can do this to himself? You're supposed to be selfish! You, Pines!" Bill Yelled out. "You're supposed to be more curious than you're worth. You were supposed to struggle to cure yourself of me, vainly I might add!" Bill finishes his irate spiel, and then quiets out as the weight of death finally registers to the near-immortal being.

"I've finally met someone crazier than me. Hey, can you hear me, Pine Tree?"

In an instant, turbines begin to spin nearby, shaking the ground of the laboratory. The chamber fills with light, and then they were gone. In that fraction of a moment, a strange light melted away the Etherium and everything in it, though it caused no harm to the machinery. The transmogrifier only targets the Etherium after all. What's left was siphoned off into another vessel through the vents in the floor, mixing with the essence of the Time Lord. A screen nearby the chamber, hooked up to some impressive computers and diagnostic equipment was reading: "Automatic Countdown Complete. Refactoring. Beginning Time Deletion."

Far above the lab, an antenna sprouts from a patch of grass, shooting over the tops of trees with a diamond shaped broadcasting device fitted squarely to its top. The whole world stops in motion and the sky lights up with an aurora the likes of which having never been seen before. Celestial objects like Mars are seen in the sky as if they were as close as the moon, ribbons of violet light pulsating across their poles and tying the solar system together. Then, in the next seconds, it's no longer standing there. The device vanishes faster than it had appeared, leaving behind it not a trace. Not even a memory of the event in the skies.

"Hey Mabel, it's time to go! What are you doing?!" Says an exasperated Pacifica, gripping the hands of her friend with her own. Pacifica, was dressed in a grey skirt-suit, her hair back in a bun that only spoke of a high-level of professionalism. A wedding planner must look efficient after all, and if there's one thing the blonde has made sure the Northwest name is synonymous with, that's efficiency. And so, who better for the job than the calm and collected high-class girl, Mabel had thought.

"I uh," Mabel begins, but her downtrodden face is such rarity that it gives Pacifica a bad feeling, "I don't know. Something just-something just doesn't seem right, is all. I don't know." Mabel, adorned in her white dress, looks as if she were about to cry. Pacifica steps up to her friend and hugs her tightly, which is something that would a younger version of herself would scream with indignation at.

"You two are great for each other. Don't worry." Pacifica beams at her friend, though she kept an eyebrow slightly cocked as she remains analytical about the situation. Mabel looks up and smiles at the blonde, a look of warmth spreading through her eyes in return.

"I'm not worried about who I'm marrying. It just feels like something is… missing?" Mabel replies. Suddenly, Pacifica knows all too well what she meant. Pacifica herself had wondered if she had forgotten to invite someone important, be she never could find the name in any of her contacts. There were no names that stood out to here.

"Why do I feel so sad, Paz?" Said Mabel.

Pacifica looks Mabel square in the eye, but then lets her gaze drift to a point over her shoulder, "I don't know Mabel, I feel that way too."

The two stood there, lamenting the invisible hole they could feel in their hearts with growing frowns before Mabel finally speaks up, "Yeah, we should go."

Pacifica smiles softly at her friend, proud of everything she is and how far she's come in life. Without Mabel, Pacifica wouldn't know if she'd still be back home in Oregon, living under the tyranny of being a perfect image. The faint feeling of a hand on her shoulder startles her, but when she turns her head to look, there's nothing there but the dust of the air.

"Yeah, let's go."

* * *

*Etherium: A ghostly, vibrant purple crystal with space-altering properties.


End file.
